


Dionaea muscipula

by GraydleRabbit



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Destructive Tendencies, Dysfunctional Family, Flowers, Gen, Plants, Post-Canon, Toxic Masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29150607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraydleRabbit/pseuds/GraydleRabbit
Summary: Michael enjoys raising beautiful plants. Unfortunately, his older brother disapproves of his hobby. That is, until Michael brings home a very special kind of plant.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Dionaea muscipula

**Author's Note:**

> A short little story. 
> 
> I'm not a botanist so I apologize if I got anything wrong in regards to raising flowering plants, especially the ones in this story.

He told his younger brother that planting flowers was for prissy pansies, and more than once did he take aggressive measures to deter the little brat from investing in that stupid hobby.

Petals torn from their base, leaves yanked from their stem, roots pried from the soft soil below. Those freshly purchased pots of tulips or orchids or some other pussy shit laid in globs of dirt and ceramic shards scattered throughout the kitchen floor in a messy display—this was the usual sight whenever Michael came home from school.

And upon questioning Thomas on his misconduct, he spat in his face without another word.

“Wasn’t me.”

It never deterred the twerp for some reason.

Michael always cleaned up Thomas' mess while Christopher scolded the reckless, arrogant teenager for destroying the belongings of others.

Thomas never listened, and Michel refused to concede.

Michael brought home more the following day, just as beautiful as the ones before it.

Just as fragile.

So while Michael was busy with math problems at school, helping Yuma as he usually does, Thomas kicked it down from the windowsill as Byron watched with a cup of tea between his fingers, never once addressing his middle son's aggressive tendencies; although, he did crack a bemused smile when Thomas glared at him like he was snarling, "Yeah, watcha gonna do about it, you old rug?"

And the cycle renewed.

"Still at it?" sneered Thomas, sitting in a chair with his legs crossed, watching his little brother sweep the brown specks of dirt into a dustpan. "Growin’ flowers for your boyfriend or something?"

Michael didn't answer.

Instead he shook his head while soft, forgiving smile formed on his face. A smile that said that Thomas will understand these things when he gets older.

And it pissed him off.

It really did.

For weeks this continued.

A bouquet in a tube—dish soap directly into the water.

Swapped to plastic pots because they won’t shatter, and Thomas poured boiling water over them.

Even fake, plastic flowers weren't safe. The malign duelist tossed them into the oven for a couple of hours before planting the globular mass of plastic colors back into the foam for his younger brother to appreciate.

No matter the kind of flowers Michael brought home, the words he spoke to his older brother, and even going as far as to leaving a couple of the pots inside his room, Thomas always managed to get to them.

From lilies to daisies, to orchids and tulips of all colors, to the largest and brightest chrysanthemum, even buds and bulbs that will one day transform into their majestic forms, Thomas smashed them, leaving their mangled, vibrant corpse strewed about like he was an cocky murderer.

He never cared because flowers were flowers and flowers were only for weaklings.

At some point, Christopher advised Michael to stop investing his allowance in flowerpots since it became apparent that the _ignorant troll_ in this household—this earned him a warning to sleep with one eye open tonight if he valued his hair—won't allow the poor things to last through a single night.

As Michael examined the dying leaves with a conflicted pout, wondering why his brother refused to comply, Byron, who sat in a child seat, sipping his afternoon drink with that single watchful eye as always, spoke up with a delightful glee.

"What a wild child, is he not?" he said lowly, laughing merrily, but even then, he held the intelligence that Michael knew he had.

Byron suggested something different.

While Thomas was laying out his cards on the kitchen table in preparation of the upcoming tournament, Michael came in with another flowerpot. It looked expensive for sure, handcrafted at the florist shop somewhere in Heartland City, with the paint glimmering against the light and the carvings of elegant beasts and waves and geometric patterns so beautiful that Thomas will barely regret shattering it later.

Michael didn't say a word as he placed the pot on the windowsill a couple of feet away from his older brother, allowing it to bathe in the intense rays of the sun.

He left after prepping a small meal for himself, after handing Thomas a pack of unopened Duel Monsters cards he purchased at a nearby card shop—like a kind offering to the greedy dragon as a plea to not destroy the village.

Thomas scoffed while he ripped open the pack.

Ah, useless cards that won't fit in his deck at all.

He tossed them aside before glancing at the small flowerpot a little while away.

Speculations on how to kill the plant rushed though his head before Michael had even placed it down. Something about replacing it with some poison ivy, he was thinking.

Thomas kicked himself out of the chair before meandering over to the window. He was about commit to the classic act of violence by kicking it off the stand until…

He laid eyes on it.

It was definitely a plant, but it looked… evil?

Like little mouths, tiny green daggers glued onto the moistened soil below it. It was unlike anything Michael purchased previously. He stared at them with a furrowed brow, a light but confused hum escaping his lips, and then placed the tip of his index finger into one of the mouths. It closed around his finger. Thomas blinked in confusion, before retracting his unsevered digit.

The next day, Michael woke up to a fully intact, freshly watered plant with a smugly grinning Byron on his throne as always.

"You must read Thomas' desires and work with him," he giggled while the youngest son examined his plant for any damages, but instead, he found several small insects—fireflies he soon found—encased in some of the traps. "He is quite easy after that."

Concluding that Thomas won’t main these types of plants, Michael eventually went out to find more. Pitcher plants and bladderworts, even a couple pots of gorgeous sundews, any species of carnivorous plants that can happily thrive indoors found its home near the kitchen window and around the house.

For the most part, Thomas left them alone—although Michael woke up in the middle of the night to fetch a glass of water only to walk in on his brother standing in the shadows with nothing but the light from his D-gazer, shoving a moth into the sundews, then watching with an intrigued expression as the plant devoured its prey by smothering it in a thick layer of nectar and coiling its tendrils around it.

As disturbing as Michael found his habits to be, as well as feeling guilty for promoting the unsavory side of his personality by allowing him this outlet, the boy recalled his father’s advice regarding Thomas’ sadistic nature.

"Thomas is more curious than cruel. Give him time to work it out."

Michael was skeptical of course, knowing Thomas very well considering the things they been through together, but also knowing that his sadism grew out of a need to protect himself and his family. With no one to protect, with the dysfunctional family back as one, even if they were barely strung together with thread—and with his newfound friend to keep him leashed to reality, too—Thomas grown more mellow, if only barely.

So Michael turned a blind eye to this for now.

And eventually, Thomas stopped feeding the plants at night.

And more curiously, the pots began to move. To an untrained eye, no one would’ve noticed that the slower-growing plants were swapped with the pots placed on the brightest windowsill. No one would’ve noticed that every single one of the dozen or so plants shifted by an inch or two in their spot, like they were all taken from their home and moved to an unknown location while Michael was busy at school. It was strange, but it was also strange that Thomas placed a basin outside during a downpour.

Michael turned a blind eye to this too.

When Spring finally arrived, the house was littered not only with the flowers of the living, healthy plants—which benefitted from the productive growing season—but also with lilies and daisies and orchids and tulips and chrysanthemum and everything else that can now safely inhabitant the house with their carnivorous relatives.

**Author's Note:**

> do research and treat plants kindly
> 
> (\\_/)  
> — (o.o)  
>  (___)0


End file.
